The Hand of God (7 page)

‘I haven’t started yet,’ said Scudder. ‘There was a smash on the ring road last night. Some teenager sent a Capri into the back of a lorry. Caused a five-mile tailback. Three dead, six injured. Your two got pushed back down the waiting list, sorry.’

Typical.
‘Okay, fair enough. Just one quick question.’

‘For you, Inspector, anything.’

‘Mrs Scanlon. Was she wearing knickers?’

‘Didn’t you check?’ Scudder chuckled. Not waiting for a reply, he continued: ‘Since you ask, no, she wasn’t. Moreover, in anticipation of your next question, from a preliminary investigation conducted before Boy Racer and his mates muscled their way on to my slab, it looks like she was sexually assaulted.’

‘By her husband?’

‘I would doubt it. According to his medical records, Hugh Scanlon had been struggling with impotence for more than a decade. Not such a big surprise when you think about it, given his age.’

‘Okay. When will you get round to them?’

‘Tomorrow at the earliest. More likely the day after. I’ll keep you posted.’

‘Thanks.’ Ending the call, Callender wandered back into the kitchen to retrieve the Marks & Spencer plastic bag into which he had placed the newly discovered evidence. Locking up the house, he slowly made his way to the car, conscious of the lace curtains twitching in next door’s front room. The sun had disappeared behind the clouds and the temperature had fallen by maybe ten degrees, leaving a discernible chill in the air. Worse than that, it looked like he would be late for dinner again.

Settling into the driver’s seat, the inspector knew what he had to do next. He had a lot of time for Frank Scudder and was sympathetic to the difficulty of doing his job with the limited resources provided by Berkshire County Council. If he was going to solve this case, however, Callender knew that he was going to have to call on additional help.

It was impossible to ignore the flowers. Thirteen, no, fourteen roses, red, yellow and orange – a riot of colour in the otherwise monochrome office. From a secret admirer, perhaps?

Catching her underling staring at the bouquet, the commander gave him a sharp look. ‘They brighten the place up a little, don’t you think?’

‘Er, yes, I suppose so,’ stammered Palmer, blushing slightly, worried that the old bag might be able to read his mind. These little chats in her office were becoming an unfortunate habit, and he wondered what she had in store for him this time. One thing was certain: she wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in his opinion of the flowers.

Picking up a small card from her desk, Brewster smiled. If anything, it made her look scarier than usual. ‘They were a very nice surprise when I arrived in the office this morning.’

‘I’m sure.’ A thought popped into Palmer’s otherwise empty brain.
Security probably shoved them through the X-ray machine in the basement.
He smiled at the idea. The petals would probably drop off in a matter of hours. ‘Who were they from?’ he asked hopefully. Any scuttlebutt about the commander would be gold dust. After more than a year in Gower Street, Camilla Brewster was still an enigma to her colleagues. Forty-something. Divorced. Rumoured to be dating a still-in-the-closet junior minister in the seemingly impregnable Thatcher government. Not a lot to go on, really. The nearest they’d come to any colour was when Marchmain had tried to start a rumour that she liked it doggie-style; no evidence had ever been forthcoming and Palmer had always thought that his chum’s dirty mouth and loose tongue had played a not insignificant part in his subsequent deployment to the Falkland Islands.

Ignoring the question, Brewster carefully returned the card to the table. When she looked again at Palmer, the smile was gone. ‘I went out to the countryside,’ she said grimly, ‘to see your latest handiwork for myself.’

‘Oh yes?’ Palmer had known this was coming, but still it sent a shiver through his bowels.

‘Scanlon was handled . . . satisfactorily.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, bracing himself for the
but
.

‘But Mrs Scanlon . . .’ Brewster said grimly. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing? You had no authority in that regard.’

‘The old girl started cutting up rough,’ the agent said, staring off into space as if trying to recall the details. ‘I had to take some action.’

A look of profound disgust swept across the commander’s face. ‘And the . . . assault?’

‘I had to make it look realistic.’ Palmer shrugged, crossing his legs to cover the quivering erection in his trousers.

‘You had no authority,’ Brewster repeated flatly.

‘I knew that if I didn’t take appropriate action, there was the likelihood that the operation would have been compromised.’

Appropriate action?
Brewster shuddered. Was the boy some kind of psychopath? She realised that she should have sent him to the Falklands when she’d had the chance. Now she was stuck with him. Unbidden, a quote from Shakespeare popped into her head:

I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er

‘So you tried to make it look like she’d hanged herself?’ The commander shook her head in disbelief.

‘It was enough to create some doubt in the minds of the local plod,’ Palmer continued, confident in his ability to brazen it out. ‘It’ll give us more time to, er, sort things out.’

‘Give
me
more time, you mean,’ Brewster barked, furious at herself for allowing this young whippersnapper to turn the tables on her so easily. ‘Time to clean up your mess.’ She stared at the flowers, but even that small pleasure seemed to have been ripped away from her. ‘If I’m not careful, Palmer, you are going to send me the way of my predecessor.’

‘How
is
Commander Sorensen?’ Palmer asked solicitiously.

‘Struggling, apparently. His wife has refused to relocate to Port Stanley and the poor fellow is hitting the bottle quite hard, by all accounts.’

‘Mm.’ Palmer had heard as much on the grapevine. Marchmain said they were running a book on how long it would take their boss to end up face down in the South Atlantic. Anyway, back to the matter in hand. ‘Do you need me to do anything about the Scanlon situation?’

‘No, no.’ Brewster dismissed the suggestion with an angry wave of her hand. ‘You’ve done enough already.’

‘So, everything is . . . sorted?’

‘Yes. My people . . . our people have gone over the scene and cleaned it up. CID has been told to keep its nose out. The local constabulary will remain nominally in charge. Happily these people couldn’t catch a cold. But I will keep an eye on it, just in case. I consider it my penance for letting you loose on those poor people in the first place.’

Ignorning the barb, Palmer spread his hands wide. ‘So what can I help you with today, ma’am?’

Brewster shuddered, then quickly pulled herself together. Taking a slim manila envelope from a drawer, she pushed it across the desk. ‘Now that Scanlon has been dealt with, we need to move up the food chain.’

‘Yes.’ Palmer stared at the envelope but made no effort to pick it up.

‘So, how much do you know about a gentleman called Maurice Peters?’

‘Oi, Carlyle!’

‘Yes, Sarge?’ Having just reported for duty, the young constable eyed the desk sergeant warily, wondering what rubbish job he was going to be awarded today. Alec Jeffreys’ complexion was getting redder by the day. It looked like the half-bottle of Metaxa brandy that he routinely kept under the desk had already taken quite a hammering this morning. Not for the first time, Carlyle thought wistfully of Jeffreys’ predecessor, the voluptuous Sandra Wollard, a forty-something divorcee who had set tongues wagging at the station by ravishing a willing Carlyle at a crime scene. Soon afterwards, she had decamped to the delights of Theydon Bois. Since then, her young paramour had hooked up with Helen, but Sandra still held an unshakeable place in his affections.

Jeffreys gestured towards an older guy standing a couple of feet from the desk. He was slender, maybe a shade over six feet tall; Carlyle pegged him at mid to late fifties. His suspiciously black hair was slicked back across his scalp with Brylcreem, and despite the relatively early hour, there was a dark five o’clock shadow on his jaw. Dressed in a tweed suit with a checked shirt and a red tie, he looked like a character out of a 1950s B movie.

It’s a bit hot for that get-up
, was all Carlyle could think.

The ensemble was completed by a pair of heavy-looking tan brogues. A small canvas holdall sat on the floor next to the desk.

‘This is Inspector Callender,’ Jeffreys explained. ‘He needs to go to the Castle.’

‘And you want me to take him?’ Carlyle’s voice held all the enthusiasm of a ten-year-old facing a plate of Brussels sprouts.

‘No,’ Jeffreys replied sarkily, ‘I want you to give him directions.’

Callender offered Carlyle an apologetic shrug. ‘To be honest, Sergeant, I don’t need a minder.’

‘Protocol,’ Jeffreys replied, moderating his tone only slightly for the benefit of his superior. ‘No one goes into the Castle on their own until further notice. It’s not safe.’

‘I’ve been in far worse places.’ The inspector smiled, trying to keep things light.

Jeffreys, however, was not going to be moved on the issue. ‘If I let you go in there and you get your head kicked in by a bunch of yobbos, I’ll be the one who gets it in the neck.’ He licked his lips; Carlyle sensed he was gagging for a drink.

In the face of the thirsty jobsworth, Callender conceded gracefully. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I’m not here to cause you grief, Sergeant.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ Jeffreys shot Carlyle a look and pointed towards the station entrance with his biro. ‘There’s a car waiting downstairs. Just make sure you get in and out without any mishaps. And watch out for the dog shit.’

Ha, bloody, ha.
Carlyle involuntarily lifted a hand to his face. The bruises had faded but the mental scars remained.

‘Dog shit?’ Callender enquired.

‘The silly sod went arse over tit while chasing a suspect,’ the sergeant explained gleefully.

‘We caught the bugger, though, didn’t we?’ Carlyle felt compelled to pipe up in his own defence. Roger and Gareth Lovelock had been picked up in a New Cross drinking den the previous night. Their mother was still in hospital; it had been confirmed that she would never walk again.

‘Yes,’ Jeffreys reflected, ‘we did. And after you let him slip through your grasp, it only took us an extra thirty officers and another seven grand of overtime.’

‘Shit happens,’ Carlyle mumbled.

Tiring of the banter, Callender picked up his bag and gestured towards the door. ‘Shall we get going?’

The traffic was so bad that it made the Elephant and Castle seem like rush hour in Lagos. Sitting in the front of the police Escort, Carlyle lifted his gaze from the registration plate of the lorry in front and eyed the inspector in the rear-view mirror. ‘What are we doing in the Castle, then?’

‘We’re going to see a woman called Claire Marshall,’ Callender said evenly, not making eye contact. ‘Whitelaw Walkway, number 47b. Do you know it?’

‘We’ll find it. Why do you want to talk to her?’

‘Her parents have been murdered.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Carlyle went back to staring out of the window while Callender gave him a quick overview of what had happened. A middle-aged woman pushing a shopping trolley made an ambitious attempt to use a zebra crossing and almost lost her groceries as a taxi lurched across her path. The woman jumped back on to the pavement, cursing the driver, who studiously ignored her as his cab came to a complete standstill, half on the crossing.
The traffic just keeps getting worse and worse
, reflected Carlyle.
One day the whole place is going to seize up altogether.
He tuned back in to what the man behind him was saying. ‘I don’t remember reading about that in the papers.’

‘You didn’t,’ Callender harrumphed. ‘They slapped a D-notice on it.’

Carlyle frowned. A D-notice was a government ‘request’ to news editors not to report a story for reasons of national security. ‘Why?’

‘That,’ Callender smiled, ‘is a very good question.’

By the time they reached their destination, the residents of the Castle were only just beginning to stir, and they made their way to Whitelaw Walkway, deep in the heart of the estate, without incident. Claire Marshall was a tall blonde of indeterminate age, who looked like she was still trying to perfect the appearance of a surly teenager. With a cigarette hanging from her bottom lip, she ushered them into the flat without comment. At first glance, the only thing of note in the living room was the half-empty bottle of Cossack vodka sitting on the coffee table, next to a pair of empty glasses. Marshall indicated for them to take a seat on the faux leather and grabbed the bottle, unscrewing the cap with a smooth, practised movement and dumping a large measure of the spirit into one of the glasses.

Not so much a triple measure, Carlyle thought, impressed and horrified in equal measure. More like a quadruple.

Taking a slug of her drink, Marshall stepped over to the fireplace, which was empty apart from a small three-bar electric fire, and leant against the mantelpiece. ‘You’ve got a bloody nerve coming here,’ she hissed.

‘You’re the daughter of Hugh Scanlon?’ Callender enquired, ignoring her opening gambit.

The woman nodded from behind her glass.

‘In that case,’ the inspector continued, ‘I’m sorry to have to inform you that your parents have been killed.’ Carlyle was surprised at the flat, emotionless tone of his delivery; presumably it came from decades of giving people bad news. He realised that this would be his job one day, and shuddered.

Marshall took a long drag on her fag and blew a stream of smoke past a framed print of a naked couple in a passionate embrace. It was a cheap reproduction and there were what appeared to be dart holes in various places. ‘Good,’ she said finally, not looking at either of the guests sitting on her sofa.

The two policemen exchanged a quizzical glance.

Marshall watched her cigarette burn down to the filter and let it drop into the fireplace. ‘My mother died fifteen years ago,’ she continued. ‘She walked in front of a Piccadilly Line train near Osterley.’ She glared at Carlyle. ‘Have you ever been to Osterley?’